


29 Neibolt Street

by 80slieberher



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M, bill is in love with stan its just not relevant to the plot, but like i said, but theres a srprise at the end wink, im not sorry, its gross as balls fair warning, its more hinting at their gay, like. really descriptively gross, richie and eddie arent like together together, surprise at the end wink wink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 16:17:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13884525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/80slieberher/pseuds/80slieberher
Summary: the Richie/Eddie Neibolt scenes but rewritten by me and gayer





	29 Neibolt Street

**Author's Note:**

> it’s honestly pretty descriptively gross. dont read if you’re not into that. there might be homophobia stuff but i dont think so? really just implied internal homophobia

“I can’t believe I pulled the short straw,” Richie complained, following Bill up the rotten wooden stairs, Eddie standing close beside him. Their arms brushed and the two crowded in the doorway together - the sickness inducing smell of decay pungent in the air. “You guys are lucky we weren’t measuring dicks.”

“Shut up,” Eddie snapped, eye-roll evident in his voice. The three boys spread out as they walked further into the front room on the house, leaves crunching under their feet.

“I can smell It.” Eddie remarked, disgusted. He moved into the room to the right of the house - the cool darkness drawing him in.

“Don’t breathe through your mouth,” Richie’s face turned up into a grimace, and at Eddie’s question of “Why not?” He revealed:

“Because then you’re eating it.” As if it were the most normal assumption to make - the thought causing Eddie to gag dramatically as he walked further into the darkness absorbing the room.

Bill didn’t entertain either of them, walking forward and toward the staircase that looked as if it may crack under the weight of a mouse. Eerie yellow light shone in through the musty curtains on the windows above the stairwell, giving him the little bit of light it took to walk without tripping.

“Hello?” A voice moaned, loud but muffled - sounding slurred, sounding distressed. Richie whipped around to find Bill already looking at him with wide eyes, the two not needing to speak before they each dashed for the stairs, bounding up them to investigate the sound.

Eddie hadn’t heard the moan - but had indeed heard the  _thud-dud, thud-dud, the-dud_  of sneakers on stairs, each step followed by the agonizing, high pitched squeak of said stairs that threatened to break with every step. Eddie wandered out from his depth in the dark room - it was getting so dark in there that he hadn’t even been able to see where he was going anymore, so it was probably for the best that he turned around anyway.

Upon reaching the main room again, he found it empty - absent of Richie or Bill. He swallowed, fear setting in even more so now that he was alone. He’d counted on at least Richie sticking to his side, not that he would admit that.

He felt his heart beat fast behind his rib cage, and he gagged again.

He contemplated leaving, there was probably something in this air anyway - nothing healthy to breathe could smell this bad or feel so thick in his lungs. He patted his pocket for his inhaler just as his watch beeped, scaring him and causing him to jump. The house was ear-splittingly quiet; Eddie hadn’t even known it was possible for silence to scream like it was until now.

He didn’t have the heart to take his pills, now, though, as his hands were shaking almost as much as his breaths.

“Beep beep, Eds,” A familiar voice whispered from across the room. “Your pills. Your pills.”

“Richie?” Eddie asked it, and his eyes followed the sound to a hallway opposite him where he caught a tuft of black hair and glimpse of a familiar blue t-shirt move just out of sight. “Where are you going?” He was moving after his friend slowly, still being weary of juts of wood from the floor he could trip on, steering clear of corners that seemed too dark to be safe. Footsteps echoed from the hallway he was moving toward - it even darker than the room he was in earlier. He didn’t trust it, but was determined to follow Richie.

“Richie,” He snapped again, hearing another shuffle emit from the hallway he was mere paces from now. He inched forward, the blackness feeling awfully foreboding. “Come out of there, dumbass, you’re gonna get us lost, who knows how many rooms are in this place? Let’s go find Bill.”

There was more wordless shuffling in the hallway.

“I can hear you, you know!” He called, finally placing a foot over the threshold, “You’re not going to scare me, asshole!”

He now saw that there was a faint light at the end of the hallway - which was a lot longer than he’d expected. It was dim, as it only fed in from a window covered by another musty yellow drape, but it was light. Eddie was glad to bask in it soon, and on top of that, Richie was at the end of it, standing right in front of the drapes. Eddie had to squint to make him out, and it didn’t help that he was facing away from him, but Eddie knew it was Richie nonetheless.

Eddie nearly ran to him, ignoring the uncomfortable squishing that seemed to grow under his feet as he approached and the stench in the air getting thicker and more repulsive with every step - all in favor of retrieving his friend so they might leave. He’d had enough of the house already.

Upon reaching the doorway, Eddie stopped before he could step over. Richie hadn’t turned around or made any remarks, which were both outright uncommon for him. Surely he would have tried to scare Eddie by now.

“C’mon, Trashmouth,” He tried to play it cool, act like he wasn’t as scared as he was. Act like his heart wasn’t palpitating, act like he wasn’t about to start wheezing if he breathed any faster. “Let’s go, we should get out of here. It’s disgusting - I don’t even want to think about what kinds of things you can contract from just breathing in here. There’s probably some ancient disease in here, like, like smallpox or malaria, or - or what about cholera! We could get cholera!”

Richie was silent. Eddie looked to the tile floor and gave it a scrutinizing stare before he deemed it sturdy enough to step onto - it had to be if it held Richie up, and Richie was bigger than he was.

He looked back to Richie. Nothing.

He stepped in, wary of the floor creaking underneath his footsteps, and also tiptoed to his friend, holding his breath the whole way without knowing why.

He lifted a quivering hand to just above Richie’s shoulder upon reaching a foot behind him, going to pull him around to face him - but just before he could, he watched a white bug scurry around the neckline of Richie’s shirt, back to his front side.

Eddie’s blood ran cold, and he gasped loudly as he stepped back, panic set into his features. The door slammed, and he fell onto his ass with a thud as he pivoted to face the door again.

While his head turned, he caught glimpse of the bathtub that had been hidden behind the wall in front of him before with the curtain closed, but now was thrust wide open with it’s gory contents available to his eyes.

The leper lay there in the tub, he couldn’t see what liquid was in it from his angle on the floor, but judging by it’s black-red soaked clothes, it sure as hell wasn’t water.

It’s mouth hung open disgustingly, some teeth gone and some still rotting, jaw unhinged as it laid lifelessly in the tub, brown-tinted flesh barely hanging onto it’s protruding bones, yellowed and cracked from what he could see.

Eddie felt like he might puke, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away - until a voice brought him out of his horrified, frozen trance.

“You should’ve taken him up on it,” A voice snickered - one that sounded like his own, but gargled and mean, slurrish. “Bobby does it for a dime, he will do it any time, fifteen cents for overtime!” It singsonged, moving all the way but somehow making no noise. Eddie didn’t dare look behind himself and toward the door, where it finally emanated from, so he looked back to Richie instead. He couldn’t seem to make his body move more than that - as he stayed on the ground, feeling glued to it.

His eyes landed on Richie, who was still turned away from him the exact way he was before. Eddie opened his mouth to croak his name, maybe pull him away from whatever was holding him there, say  _something_  - before the voice cut him off again.

“He doesn’t say much, you know,” It giggled, “Isn’t that right, Rich?”

Eddie watched Richie turn around, _finally_  - but it wasn’t Richie. Well, it was, but his face was mangled, looking half chewed. Streaks of blood ran down the left side of his face and maggots and other gut-wrenching insects crawled in his open wounds. What was left of the skin on his face was sickly pale, nearly light blue, and his mouth was half sewn shut - but it smirked anyway.

Suddenly, he wasn’t frozen anymore, and he kicked himself away from not-Richie, nearly gagging. He looked repulsive, but again, Eddie couldn’t take his eyes off of him even as he watched a maggot slide down the side of his face. He wretched before his back hit a wall, finding there was nowhere else to go. He felt the slick, peeling, rotting wallpaper stick to the back of his neck where hairs stood on end.

There was a short gust of wind, and Eddie broke his eyes away from the unmoving Richie that smirked at him to the source of it, by the sink. There was a figure sitting there, dirty, with the same black substance dripping down his chin that stained the lepers tattered clothes.

It was himself.

He scrambled up, breathing fast, wheezing harder than ever before but not even thinking about his inhaler - focused on getting the fuck out of there.

He made a run for it.

“Don’t’cha wanna get clean, Eds? You’re dirty!” The other-worldly version of himself snickered from behind him, amused, “Mommy won’t like that!” He mocked, “Come take a bath, Eddie, Bobby will help you! Bobby can make you feel like you’re  _floating_. Float, Eddie, come float -  _Richie_  makes me float…”

He went on like that, but Eddie had reached the door now - but it was shut and locked somehow from the outside. Who puts locks on the outsides of bathroom doors? Everything about Neibolt was backwards, he realized - and he wanted out before he’d even come in. He shook the doorknob and pounded on the door, kicking it with all of this might, but it didn’t budge.

“Richie! Richie!” He screamed, but it was no use, the only thing that was too be heard was liquid gushing out onto the floor behind him - and he looked down in horror to see black coating his shoes, inching up. He didn’t dare spare a glance behind him to catch the source - he only pushed harder on the door.

“C’mon, Eds, c’mon, Eds,” The voice from earlier that lead him to the hallway whisper-chanted behind him - but he knew it wasn’t Richie now. Richie never rasped, Richie had no trouble speaking at all.

Eddie screamed as he felt the black liquid encompass his shoes and touch his ankles - his skin - and he gave the door one more violent kick, the wood at last breaking, wet and rotting smells coming from the inside of it. He didn’t even care - he needed to get away from there and fast, by whatever means possible.

He smashed and smashed at it while voices kept chanting behind him, sounding like they inched closer as the liquid drew up and up his legs, starting to splash out into the hallway he’d run down only minutes before.

He finally punched a big enough hole into it to squeeze himself through, knuckles bloody and likely bruised, but pushed himself through it. He relished the feeling of his legs being free of the tar-ish–blood-like substance as he dashed down the hall. He made one glance back over his shoulder to make sure none of the nightmares from the bathroom were following him, and in that second, his body hit something hard, his head being the last to bang into it as he turned it forward again.

He fell backwards and down, down onto the floor, skull hitting it with a  _crack_ , before everything went black.

* * *

Richie couldn’t focus - Bill wandered a few feet ahead of him and shone his flashlight into every room. He swore he’d heard someone calling his name earlier, and though Bill had put his hands on his shoulders and assured him nothing was wrong, he still felt uneasy. There was a pit in his stomach he couldn’t shake.

He looked down at his side for a seventh time - still not finding the familiar and comforting face of his small friend beside him. He’d counted on Eddie sticking to his side at least, like he always did, to provide him some comfort, but they’d left Eddie downstairs in their hurry to investigate the voice they’d heard.

Richie regretted it, but whenever he tried to turn back, Bill assured him Eddie was alright - he would signal for them, or do something, if he needed them. Eddie was loud, they would hear him.

Richie thought Bill was simply afraid of being alone, too. He couldn’t blame him, so he pressed on with his friend and without the usual warmth of Eddie at his side. He would call if he needed them.

The floorboards bent under their feet sometimes, though they each weren’t heavy at all, and Richie wondered now and again if they would break under them and they would fall through. It seemed kind of wrong that he hoped for it - something to give them an excuse to leave. Being in the house gave him a terrible, foreboding feeling, like something bad was about to happen without any warning. A real-life jump scare.

He was glad he’d peed in the bushes before they’d come in, even if he’d only meant it as an act of disrespect at the time.

Bill was a couple yards ahead of him when he heard it.

“Richie.” A voice squeaked from a room nearby. Richie didn’t look to Bill for even a second before he wandered forward - he would know that voice anywhere.

“Eddie?” He whisper-called back, tactlessly entering the room. “Eddie, where are you? This isn’t a game of hide and seek, dipshit!”

“Richie.” The voice beckoned him forward again, giggly this time, before Richie’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting.

“Ugh, clowns,” He grimaced, his teeth gritting. This place was weirder than he’d expected - who kept a room full of clown puppets and figures and dolls?

“ _Richie!_ ” Bill’s voice echoed from the hallway behind him, just as the door whipped closed, separating them.

Richie ran dashed back to it - trying fruitlessly to pull it open, but it was locked. From the outside.

He huffed and gritted his teeth once again as he adjusted his glasses. He realized upon turning around that there was a casket at the end of the clown-lined path - an open casket. Curiosity took the better of him, and he walked forward as gingerly as possible, determined not to show his fear. Plus, Eddie was in here, clearly - and he only needed to find him and the two could get out together. He was sure their combined strength could break the door.

As he approached the casket, he squinted to read a yellowed paper tacked to the top of it. He realized, upon nearing, that it was a missing poster.

_MISSING: RICHIE TOZIER_

Something whooshed behind him and he jumped, tearing his eyes away and scanning the room behind him. It was empty except the weird clowns.

He turned his head back to the poser - but it was gone now, not even an imprint in the wood from where the tack had been. Richie ran his tongue over his teeth and tried to keep his heart-rate under control.

“What the fuck?” He murmured, laughing nervously, trying to humor himself.

He pulled himself up the couple of stairs to look into the casket - and what he saw made him gasp and jump back in surprise, landing on his ass at the foot of the steps.

It had been him in the casket - well, not really him. A gross, fucked up version of him, with his mouth sewn shut and bugs on his face. He looked like a puppet.

“This hah-has to be some kind of fucking joke,” He tried to laugh again, but the knot in his stomach made him feel like puking instead, “Okay, Stanley, Bill, Mike, whoever else was in on this,” He called, “You can come out now! You know, considering everything that’s happened to us these past couple days, this isn’t all that fucking funny, but I’m glad you guys got your shits and giggles.”

The feeling in his gut betrayed him again - like he knew deep down this was no joke. IT was real, it was all real.

The thing in the casket sat up.

Richie had never been on his feet so fast in his life as he backtracked toward the door, but the whoosh from earlier sounded again and suddenly there was a figure in front of it, blocking his only way out.

He stared at it, open mouthed. It was Eddie - but not. Eddie would never let himself get so dirty, and Eddie’s eyes weren’t yellow tinted - Eddie didn’t look  _diseased_. His mouth oozed black and his eyes pointed in different directions but only slightly - Richie could barely bare to look but at the same time couldn’t break his stare.

“What the matter, Trashmouth?” He cooed, and his voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard in Richie’s ears, so much so he almost covered them. It was gargled and disgusting, it hurt his head just hearing it once. “Cat got your tongue?”

Richie remained speechless, mouth hanging open in shock and fear as he tried to back away again, but his body hit something squishy and sticky and… breathing.

He whirled around, face to face with the other him, and his heart felt like it may beat out of his chest now. He didn’t know why he couldn’t scream. Where was Eddie?

“Cat got his tongue,” Other-Eddie snickered from behind him, and he turned again to face him. He walked toward Richie gingerly, as if they’d been friends like he and Eddie had. They hadn’t - this wasn’t Eddie. “Isn’t that right, Rich?”

The thing behind him grunted, and there was another whoosh and gust of stale air around Richie as Eddie disappeared from in front of him again. He now sat perched on the arm of a clown, a rather large one so that he was towering over both Richies now, and Richie shuddered at the thought.

“Careful, Rich!” Eddie smirked to his apparent sidekick, “Don’t touch the other boys! You know how you are. They’ll know your secret…”

Another grunt from beside him, and suddenly this dirty, disgusting Eddie was in front of him, hands on his chest. He backed away as quickly as he could, stumbling and falling into a clown, breath ragged.

“Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” He blurted, “Don’t fucking touch me!”

“Why, Richie?” The thing, he refused to call it Eddie, now, walked toward him again, standing over him. “I know your secret. We all know your secret.”

Richie kicked and kicked, out of the hold of the plastic clown he’d fallen into, and then behind it - immediately falling down, down through a hole in the floor he must not have seen. He yelped as it disappeared from under him and he fell through the air, but he quickly thudded to the floor, surprisingly unscathed.

He was up within a second, ready to leave this fucking house and never come back - when he spotted Eddie lying only feet away from him, in front of a wall and out cold.

He didn’t know if he’d ever been so happy to see him, and quickly crawled over to his body.

“Eddie, Eds,” He shook the smaller boy, “Eddie, get the fuck up, this is no time for beauty sleep, get  _up_!  _BILL!_ ” He screamed, hoping their friend would hear them and find them, save them, help him get Eddie out,  _anything._

“Richie?” Eddie answered groggily, beginning to blink his eyes open and feel around his chest and arms as Richie held him.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me, c’mon, we gotta find Bill-” Before Richie can finish or even usher Eddie up onto his feet like he was about to, closets on either end of the room creaked open, and suddenly Richie was clinging onto Eddie just as hard as Eddie was to Richie, holding each other in a tight embrace.

Their nightmares dragged themselves across the floors toward them - undead Richie to Eddie and dirty Eddie to Richie.

“Don’t touch the other boys, Richie! Don’t touch the other boys, Richie!” He gargled, Eddie watching from over Richie’s shoulder as his tar-black droll his the ground from dripping of of his face. He wished he could shrink further into the other boy.

“Richie does it for a dime, he will do it any time - but for Eds he’ll do it for free.” Those words must have been the most Eddie had ever heard the Richie-thing utter and the most coherent. Richie watched and hugged Eddie closer as the thing trudged toward them like a zombie, paralyzed with fear.

Eddie finally managed to work up enough courage to scramble out of Richie’s hold and grab his hands, pulling him to his feet and after him at the two dashed out of the room, tripping over each others’ feet in the chaos.

They tumbled into the room with the nearest light source - which happened to be the room they’d entered from - but that didn’t make any sense with the routes they’d respectively taken. If they had calculated it and weren’t focused so much on their fear, surely they would have noticed they should have been exiting at the back of the house, but they were here. How backwards.

They found Bill there, however, and they each ran to him - he looked nearly as shaken as they did, but yet determined.

“I fuhf-f-f-found the well-” He told them, but they were screaming, and the others were beginning to pour in now too - Beverly in the doorway and Ben behind her, Mike with Stan behind them.

“Fuck the well, the well doesn’t matter!” Richie babbled, Eddie finishing his sentence for him.

“We need to get the fuck out of here!”

The two made a run for the door and the others followed - Stan leaping down the stairs before even they had the chance to - and the seven kids sped away on their bikes as fast as they could as a curtain swished closed in Neibolt’s front window.

“Ya think we scared ‘em?” Eddie snickered, childishly evil grin exposing yellowed teeth.

Richie gave him a tight-lipped smile back, blood dripping slightly from where the seams on his mouth pulled from the motion. A curt nod and a positive-sounding grunt came from his throat as he put his hands onto the smaller boy’s dirtied cheeks and pulled their faces together; A kiss that would have been sweet, had it been minus the oil-slick liquid and the maggots.


End file.
